In 1976 it was hard to turn on the radio without hearing Gary Wright. He released his album, The Dream Weaver, in late 1975, and the single Dream Weaver quickly rose up the charts in 1976 reaching #2. I was lucky enough to see Gary perform on July 4, 1976 (the US Bicentennial) at Nashville Speedway (Peter Frampton, Gary Wright, and Natural Gas). It was a great show and Gary’s performance was amazing.

Many of my friends thought that Gary had appeared out of nowhere and and achieved overnight success but I knew better. Gary paid his dues…..he:

played the organ with Spooky Tooth from 1967 to 1964 and served as a major writer for the group’s albums

played keyboard on All Things Must Pass and on Nillson’s huge hit single, Without You

had a number of side projects including one called Wonderwheel

All of the above happened before his success with Dream Weaver….overnight success…..I think not!

So enough talking….let’s listen to some music. First up is a great Spooky Tooth live performance from 1969

Here is Gary performing Dream Weaver right around the same time that I saw him in 1976……

The bonus part of this Two’fer Tuesday post is an appearance by Gary Wright and Wonderwheel on the Dick Cavett show in 1971. If you watch close you might recognize the guy sitting behind Gary playing the sweet slide guitar…..

Yes…..that really was George Harrison sitting in on slide guitar. He did it as a thank you to Gary for playing keyboard on All Things Must Pass.